LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As excitement builds for the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, experts are emphasizing a crucial aspect often overshadowed by the spectacle: eye safety.
Dr. Grant Rubesh with Louisville Visionworks said there are serious implications of staring directly at the sun without proper eye protection.
We have a very small part of our eye that holds a big responsibility. If it gets damaged, there’s no going back. That's why it is so incredibly important to invest in solar eclipse glasses.
Rubesh demonstrated which part of the eye would get damaged via an optomap image, pointing to the macula, which is responsible for all the central vision.
"If anything happens to this part of the eye, it doesn’t matter how strong we make glasses or contacts. We can't fix it," Rubesh said. "The cells are very intricate. They are your photoreceptors responsible for all of your central vision. They can only handle so much light. There is an ideal amount of light they can take and if we go over that limit, it destroys those cells and your central vision could just be permanently lost."
Regular sunglasses simply are not going to cut it for the total solar eclipse.
"Regular sunglasses will block the UV rays but will not block the intensity of the sun, infrared and the full spectrum. It is not even close," he said. "The eclipse glasses are 100,000 times darker than regular sunglasses."
Keep in mind that your solar eclipse glasses must be worn for the entirety of the event if you plan to stay in Louisville or any other areas that are not in the path of totality. The sun will not be completely covered by the moon at any point.
In the path of totality, you can take your glasses off only during the 100% totality phase, but remember that only lasts for a few minutes. Once the sun begins to show again, you'll need to put them back on.
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